Tape drive path and drive down issue.

Is there any facility to up the drive path and drive down via cmd prompt in Windows netbackup server of 7.1 version.

And i had 12 drives shared for 4 media servers , for ever full backup one path or a drive came down randomly and i need a idea to up the drive automatically when it comes down and use it without manual interaction ..

Vmoprcmd - up to make the drives/path up/down. Actuall as you have 12 drives shared for 4 media server every dirve will have 4 paths going to media servers. If 1 path goes down then the backups would be still running from other paths, just check if it is showing missing path for that server. If that happens configure it again and should be fine. If it is again and again going down you might need to look for errors on the OS or connectivity.

I agree with sazz - 'vmoprcmd -up ...' will do it for you, but there is no automated way in NBU to do this.

I have seen on the old veritas-bu mailing list that guys had scripts that they scheduled at OS level to check for DOWN drives at regular intervals and up them.

I have never agreed with this method - there is a REASON why drives are being DOWN'ed. NBU is not randomly DOWN'ing drives just because it 'feels' like it.

There are MANY reasons why drives are DOWN'ed - rather put all troubleshooting methods in place to find out WHY drives are being DOWN'ed and fix/eliminate issues causing this.

Create bptm logs on all media servers.
Add VERBOSE entry to vm.conf on all media servers and restart NBU.
Device-level errors will by logged in Windows Event Viewer System and Application logs, and to syslog on Unix/Linux servers (e.g. /var/log/messages on Linux).
I/O errors and TapeAlerts will be logged to bptm log.

Supporting Storage Foundation and VCS on Unix and Windows as well as NetBackup on Unix and WindowsHandy NBU Links

4) Install the latest device mappings - http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH129536
- Symantec is constantly updating them so be sure to check back for newer versions.
- To confirm what version you are on :
C:\Program Files\VERITAS\Volmgr\bin\tpext -get_dev_mappings_ver

5) Check to see if the drives need cleaning.
- Even if you think the drives are clean (by looking at the library’s GUI ) , they must been in a 'clean state' on the Netbackup side.
- From the Volmgr\bin\tpclean -L
If the output contains the message, NEEDS CLEANING you must clean the drive.
You can do clean the drive in the admin console or from a command line. Please review the following tech notes:http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO43740 - tpcleanhttp://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH17537 - How to use NetBackup's drive cleaning utility, tpclean, with a Libraryhttp://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH37409 - How to set up automatic tape cleaning in NetBackup Enterprise Server

6) Does the OS see the devices ?
- Check the OS Device Monitor and make sure they are listed and do not have any yellow exclamation marks.
- From a command line : install_path\Volmgr\bin\scan
* This tells us what the OS sees

7) Does Netbackup see the devices configured ?
- From a command line : install_path\Volmgr\bin\tpconfig -d
* This tells us what Netbackup sees as being configured

19) Run through issue and review logs. Be sure to change logging back to 0 and remove VERBSOE from vm.conf

20) If opening a case with support , include the following :
- Enviorment Information (use the server where the devices are located at)
Server Name :
OS :
NBU Version
- Details for the failed job
- All logs in #17.
- NBSU - <NetBackup install path>\NetBackup\bin\support\nbsu -c -t
- Has anything changes since this issue started occurring ? A recent upgrade ? Install ? Hardware replacement?

This was happening to me frequently last year. Follow the steps outlined above to resolve. You'll have to take the outage. I danced around taking an outage for a while. I even created an alert in OpsCenter to let me know when the drives were down. Nothing worked until I deleted the ghost devices from Device Monitor, rebooted the servers, and ran the Configure Storage Devices wizard. The failing jobs got to be too much for me. It's one of the hazards of working in a Windows environment.